topic Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities in TV

Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

Rick17 — Sat, 02 Dec 2017 14:51:23 GMT

Hello, everyone.

I have a Samsung Smart TV, the model is UE32M5505A. I want to connect this TV to an external hard drive, not to record, but to play videos. The hard drives recommended by Samsung (I have already contacted them about this issue) are those which have a maximum of 2TB capacity and which have their own power adapter. The problem is that there are no external hard drives in the market with this requirements, because all those which have 2TB or less do not have a power adapter, and those which do have, are all above 2TB of capacity. Samsung could not help with this issue when I contacted them because of this paradox.

So, is there anyone here with the same problem? And is there anyone with suggestions or solutions to this issue?

Thank you.

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

Phil12 — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 16:37:14 GMT

You should be fine using the HDD 2 amp socket on the TV that is marked for Hard drives. I'd recommend building your own using a 2.5" drive ([perhaps a 2.5" 2TB Seagate Baracuda) and something like the ORICO 2.5 Inch Aluminium USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure Case (search Amazon), this is working faultlessly from the USB socket on my Samsung TV and draws nowhere near 2 amps and is quiet and plenty fast enough for video.

Support tend to recommend an external power supply for no other reason it seems than something to suggest, I'm not aware its fixed any problems anyone has been having, and the 2amp USB port has been designed into the TV for just such a purpose, to power a hard-drive.

Regards

Phil

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

paul1111 — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 16:40:27 GMT

@Phil12 wrote:
Hi

You should be fine using the HDD 2 amp socket on the TV that is marked for Hard drives. I'd recommend building your own using a 2.5" drive ([perhaps a 2.5" 2TB Seagate Baracuda) and something like the ORICO 2.5 Inch Aluminium USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure Case (search Amazon), this is working faultlessly from the USB socket on my Samsung TV and draws nowhere near 2 amps and is quiet and plenty fast enough for video.

Support tend to recommend an external power supply for no other reason it seems than something to suggest, I'm not aware its fixed any problems anyone has been having, and the 2amp USB port has been designed into the TV for just such a purpose, to power a hard-drive.

Regards

Phil

I use a 1 ter Seagate powered by the TV with no probs, now my recording is working.

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

Rick17 — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 17:37:58 GMT

I'm thinking on buying a a 2,5'' SEAGATE Expansion Portable 1TB or 2TB, or a 2,5'' TOSHIBA 1TB (or 2TB) Canvio Basic. They are more affordable for me, right now. What do you think?

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

Rick17 — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 17:55:29 GMT

Just one more thing: i've checked and the USB port for HDD is only 5 volts/1 amp...

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

Phil12 — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 21:51:30 GMT

For a 2.5" hard-drive 1 amp should be amble.

Regards

Phil

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

Hestia — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 21:14:54 GMT

If you go to "Sources" in your smart hub can you see your drive is attached if you connected a drive to a usb port? And if not, when you turn your TV in standby and turn it on again after 30 sec. you can see it's attached? Or do you still need to buy a drive?

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

DCH1 — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:20:52 GMT

There are lots of usb HDD in 2.5" or 3.5". The larger format are probably all powered. I just rebuilt a Seagate external 2TB with its own power supply and usb3 interface. However, i am currently running a LaCie (unpowered) "rugged" drive (2TB). It shuts off with the TV - no problems so far...

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

rodopica — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 10:15:07 GMT

I'm using a toshiba canvio basics 3TB USB 3.0 on my tv samsung series 6 and it works perfectly fine. Although my tv uses this hard drive in USB 2.0 mode (I have leds on my hard drive that tell if the connection is USB 2 or 3) i can watch 4k movies without problem.

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

Rick17 — Sat, 15 Sep 2018 11:28:00 GMT

That's good to hear, Rodopica. My TV is a Samsung Series 5, though. Will it work fine on my TV also?

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

MJ69 — Sun, 28 Apr 2019 12:24:02 GMT

Is yours a UA40ES6200M ? My Toshiba DBT330 3TB won't even show up on mine and yeah tech reckons they only run 2tb hdd yet I would've thought the amps and volts (1a and 5v which is the same on both) would be the issue not disk size?

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

Anne41 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 16:23:43 GMT

Hi there

I noticed that you were/are using a Lacie 2tb rugged hdd coupled to your tv and that this works fine. I was also planning to buy the LaCie rugged mini 2tb hdd to record and watch movies/series/ etc.. on my samsung tv. But i'm hesitating, as i'm not sure this will work...Could it be possible to tell me which tv model you have or maybe better, which usb port you are using? My tv is the samsung ue40ku6400 model and has 2 usb 2.0 ports, of which one is a 5v-1A one. Do you know if 1A is efficiënt for power supply? I thank you in advance for the information! Kind regards, Anne

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

imbadri — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 18:28:58 GMT

i have same problem. i tried to connect my 1tb hard drived to my samsung tv, its not able to read my hard drive. very disappointed.

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

BBB4 — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 01:22:34 GMT

I dont know what its the problem. The thing is that some lcd.. The ones that are less expensive had less voltage in the usb.. Or is the proccesor. In my expensive lcd from up to 1350us i used to play from a 1tb without power my movues without any problem. I bought a new Uhd and the same hard disk play but it freezes and had glitches in the movie. I made some test with older tvs from 2015 but the 3d ones ( expensives) and they play perfectly. This 65 uhd do not play efficiently the movies.

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

mester778 — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 12:26:10 GMT

Hi All,

I have a QW49Q60RATXXH Saumsung TV, and I use a 4TB external HDD to play movies/series. It is basically working well, but usually it doesn't recognise correctly any type of videos, and after few times of copying and waiting, it recognises well the files. Could you please help me what can cause this issue?

Best regards

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

wledwards — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 12:39:06 GMT

Sir:

Throwing 2 amps down a 22 or 24 guage solder coated stranded nylon "wire" for any extended period of time is definitely not recommened by anyone with an ounce of professional integrity. Even if it were solid core wire, that thin of a guage, even at 5vdc, would produce undesireable heat in the wire itself. We are talking USB 3.0 cabling not 20 guage solid strand twisted POE approved wire here. Be smart...use an SSD.

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

msdickerson — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 19:00:56 GMT

I am also having issues using USB connected hard drives (WD 4tb and Seagate 7tb). These drives have mostly mkv videos on them with a few older mpegs and avi videos. None play on our QN75Q6DRAFXZA. When I copy the EXACT same files to a USB Flash drive (32gb and 64gb NTFS format), they all work fine. So much for the CODECs? Both hard drives show the directories and individual files without any issue, so its not that the TV does not recognize the NTFS format. Anyone have any ideas whats up? I can play the same movies through PLEX, but network issues can interupt the playing sometimes and I would prefer an attached hard drive.

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

NYC2020 — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 05:28:15 GMT

Those who can't get their tvs to read or even recognize an external drive, are y'all formatting the drives as ExFAT? Samsung and televisions in general run on Android-based middleware, and quite a few are fully Android TV-based operating systems. True, some tvs will negotiate with NTFS file systems on an external drive, but pairing an Android-friendly, ExFAT-formatted, external drive with a device such as a tv that can offer and Android handshake just makes sense. It will also simplify because ExFAT-formatted drives are friendly. Macs can read, write to, and repair ExFAT drives. So can PCs. Over the past five years, I've thrown all kinds file types onto my unpowered 1TB drive, a Touro Mobile USB 3, then plugged it directly into the USB port of UN50HU6950. The drive has always been managed with a Mac. Just be sure your drive is USB 3, not 2.

Re: Smart Tv and External Hard Drive: compatibilities

JMK09 — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 05:23:26 GMT

I have learned that the latest Samsung Smart TV's have a 2TB limit of External Hard Drive compatibility. I tried my Seagate 4TB HD and my Samsung TV UE50AU7100KXXU would not even register it when plugged into the rear USB Port of the TV. So I purchased a 2TB Seagate USB 3.0 External HD and transferred my collection of stored movies & tv shows from my 4TB HD to the new 2TB HD.

My Samsung TV did indeed register the new 2TB HD but I noticed that a lot of my movie files would not work because Samsung TVs do not recognize certain video formats such as MKV & AVI. If you want to get these videos to play on a Samsung Smart TV what I did was use VLC Media Player on my laptop to convert MKV or AVI videos into MP4 format. You can download VCL Media Player free, just Google search for it.

I had to convert every season of Two & a Half Men from MKV into MP4 using VCL Media Player to do it. There is a walk through guide on how to go about doing this on YouTube. Just search 'Converting video formats with VCL' . I wont lie, it is tedious and time consuming as each episode needs to be converted and it takes a bit of time.

Ensure your External HD is 2TB or below, my own being Seagate 2TB with all video files format converted to MP4.. Then all should be good to go.
Simply plug your HD into the rear or side USB port of your Samsung TV and provided that all video files are MP4 format then everything should work.

*I also noticed somewhere that your HD should not exceed 5400 rpm.
** Also the cable linking your External HD and your Samsung TV USB port should be a high quality USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 compatible as I found some videos would lag or pixilate to a lower quality when playing assuming they play at all. When I switched the connecting cable between the HD and TV USB port the videos played perfect.